Friday, May 29, 2015

There was supposed to be but one entry about the weird-assed shoes encountered on the interwebs. But there were too many. They started forming into groups: Food, animals, too dangerous to walk around in-- I thought for sure Animal Shoes would be next. I was wrong.

Here, have some shoe sculpture.

Firstly, let us all admit that we all weigh some kind of weight. Not even the slimmest of us weighs less than a unicorn fart. Our heels must take on this burden.

Which make these next shoes seem very unfair. It isn't turtles all the way down, it's women in high heels.

Do the last pair seem horribly sexist? Talk about objectifying dat ass! Here, these next shoes are sure to make you feel better about the last pair.

What?! I don't even. . . . Is that thing a buttplug? Is that other thing a butt? That shit needs to be put in chains, pronto!

That's much better.

Here's a pair of shoes for those of us who wear our hearts on our sleeves.

Now you have someplace else to put it.

Would you like some wearable modern art shoes? Maybe a deconstruction of the shoe itself, speaking to the futility and banality of the act of wearing high heels. Or would you like to insert some other bullshit that will explain the why of these shoes?

Of course you would.

You know what I'd like a lot? A reason and a place to wear these last shoes.

Thursday, May 28, 2015

There was nothing to it but to get down and start cleaning that mess up. First I used a screwdriver as a chisel to get the magnets out and then to remove the blobs of Gorilla Glue they were stuck in. Pounded out two other things that were stuck in there like nobody's business (one was irremovable), washed it with soap and warm water and sanded it with an orbital sander and ended up with this:

Still awful. Then it hit me: flip it over, dumbass! Other side cleaned and sanded;

After I figured out I was a dumbass, it was time to unwittingly waste some more time. I did this by aging the wood with tea and vinegar and steel wool. This took quite some time because the vinegar and steel wool had to sit for not a small amount of time. At least 48 hours. The tea also sat for that long, but it wasn't really necessary. This is a jar of tea and a jar of vinegar and steel wool

This is what a jar of vinegar and steel wool looks like after 3 days:

There is added balsamic vinegar in the second pic, for a darker aging. Or so I hoped. My hopes were realized:

In Part Three, I'll explain how all of this was a big, giant waste of time.
***

80's romance girl is going out on a date with a sleeveless cocktail dress with a crinoline skirt. And a bolero jacket. Because who wasn't all about the prom in the 80's?

Wednesday, May 27, 2015

There is one picture that sums up how I've been living lately. There's a story behind it, which I will tell you now.

One day I was walking down the stairs in my house and fell. Tumbled down tits over kettle, just like Eddie Murphy's Aunt Bunny. As I am not as light as gossamer angel's wings and fairy's breath, I made a whole lotta noise going down. My husband, the man with the absolute best taste in women-- clearly--, was sitting on the couch not five feet away from the stairs and heard my noisy and painful descent via my ass. He called out lovingly to me from the couch, "Be careful, Michele!" He didn't even take his hand out of his pants. He likes to watch TV Al Bundy style.

Let me reiterate so that this picture is clear in everyone's mind. As I crashed down the stairs, petticoats a-flying, my husband called out oh so very helpfully from the couch, "Be careful, Michele!"

To commemorate this occasion, my son's girl hung this placard on the soffit over the stairs.

The thing is, this has been on the soffit over the stairs for months. I barely notice it anymore. That is, until this Memorial Day weekend when my son's work buddies came over for a barbecue. There were questions. Many questions. I hope this entry answers them all.

***

80's romance girl has purchased new business clothes. This includes a pink chiffon button down shirt with a big, floppy bow.

Tuesday, May 26, 2015

Here are a few whats? Food shoes? Yes, food shoes. There are dangerous shoes and sadistic shoes and ridiculous shoes-- all of which will probably get their own entry-- and food shoes. Shoes that are food or food related. Don't try to eat them, I don't think they'd be too tasty.

This is a subtle example of a food shoe. At first it looks like what every New Yorker looks like on a hot Saturday afternoon coming out of the R train on 9th Street.

But if you look closely you will see that this is a high heeled sneaker with a food heel. A nasty-assed food heel, but a food heel nonetheless.

Some food shoes look exactly like food and you would not be faulted if you originally thought it was a shoe food. Take these slippers, for example:

Even though they look it, they are not shoe shaped bread. On the contrary, they are the opposite. There is a whole line of Bread Slippers made to look like different kinds of bread loaves. They all look like they'd keep your tootsies toasty. Think twice before buying them if someone in your household likes to drink or smoke a lot and are prone to the munchies.

What's a foot long and slippery? These bad boys!

Be honest ladies-- and you guys too, let's not be exclusionary-- you'd wear these if you didn't have bunions and plantar fascitis

But since you can't were those because of prolapsed metatarsal and your heel spur, you can wear these instead:

All this walking around in food shoes is making me thirsty. I think I need a nice cocktail

To be honest, I hate the white on black polka dots. That shoe should be taquila colored.

Up for some desert? Doesn't this look delicious?

Or are you looking for something more healthy? A piece of fruit maybe?

Friday, May 22, 2015

If you read design webpages-- and really, who doesn't-- they all say that a good color for a dark kitchen is yellow. The previous owners of the house I now live in went with this design principle in a big, bright, mustardy way.

It was time to stop this nonsense. And also to clean the damn walls because yuck. I so very much wanted red but was shouted down by the rest of the people who have to look at the walls every day. So I went with green.

After the kitchen was did, we needed to re-organize. One mini-project I latched on to like a crazy person (because that is exactly what I am) was what I have been calling the Kitchen Thingy. Here's a very little background on that.

Several years ago my son (also insane) took an unused wooden cutting board, attached magnets and a hooking thingamabob and hung it on the side of one of the cabinets to store knives and stuff. This is what an insane person thinks up when making storage for knives:

Also, it didn't work. The magnets were not strong enough to hold up the knives. And, although it went well with our previous kitchen's style of Abject Squalor, it did not fit with the new Not Disgusting decor. And so started the adventure of The Kitchen Thingy Project.. . .Dun dun duuuuuuuun!

To Be Continued. . .

***

80's romance girl is playing charades at a party. We used to do that in the 80's.

Thursday, May 21, 2015

All around the web these days, blogs and articles are taking the form of lists. There are many reasons for this, chief among them is that they are so much easier to write than actual paragraphs. Also, people are lazy and don't want to read paragraphs. And so, for the second day in one week, I make a blog entry made mainly of lists. You're welcome my lazy readers. All 3 of you.

Humans did not evolve from apes.

Almost all humans house eyelash mites. Like this one:

Hippopotamuses do not sweat blood. Oh sure, the usual fun hippo fact is that they do, in fact, sweat blood, but they neither sweat sweat nor do they sweat blood. They secrete a sunscreen/antibacterial goo that is turns red, then brown. Also their milk is not pink.

Will Smith is older than Uncle Phil was at the start of The Fresh Prince.

The world's oldest tree is 4,845 years old and lives in the U.S. It is called Methuselah and boy does it look its age:

The reason why Methuselah is the oldest living tree is because Prometheus was chopped down by the US Nation Forest Service. It is thought to have been over 5,000 years old. Now that's government service in action.

Victorians liked to take pictures with dead relatives. Because boogaboogabooga!

New York City has more people living in it than 39 whole states do.

Betelgeuse is a star so named because the astrologer who discovered it, Jans Hitelmeyer, had just seen the German version of the movie Beetlejuice.

I am not very good at lying.

***

The star Betelgeuse was discovered the first time 80's romance girl and 80's romance guy finally hooked the hell up.

Wednesday, May 20, 2015

There are things that have been said. Said repeatedly. They must be explained. The short explanation is that I am a tall drink of Coco Lopez without the can. The long explanation is that I am old and retain too much pop culture. Not the pop culture everyone else keeps like, Where's The Beef or Two-Two-Two Mints in One! No, it's stuff only I remember and then I say it and then I have to explain it but don't because fuck that noise, I'm busy talking. Well, here are some explanations.

Come, Come Algebra!

I don't say this as much now that my children are grown but it was a staple of my vocabulary when they were recalcitrant little brats otherwise known as toddlers. Algebra was the name of The Little Rascals (or Our Gang, but I'm not that old) mule. Stymie would lead it around and say, "Come, come Algebra." And that's what I'd tell my little bra. . . lovable scamps when they were being obstinate. I could not find a short clip of that exact quote, but here's some Algebra action for you anyway.

What's this? Spaghetti?

Is it possible for me to say, "Huh?" or "Pray tell, what for is this strange matter that is bought before me?" Instead I sometimes say "What's this? Spaghetti?" And the answer always is, "No it's not spaghetti, you idiot."To the people who answer my query so rudely I give to you this episode of The Brady Bunch. http://www.imdb.com/video/hulu/vi1879158041/

If you don't want to bother to watch the whole damned episode, here's a quick rundown. The Bunch are at a supermarket when a director of commercials tell them they are a perfect family to hock his bullshit, he'll be right over to film them in a minute. During that minute, the family goes home and gets all full of themselves and start putting on airs. Alice gets baloney curls. When the director comes he sees that they're all changed. He looks at Alice's baloney curls and says, "What's this? Spaghetti?" The catchphrase caught on only with me and Gina.

Lower The Voice

This saying has been beaten out of me by my family. And, although it has nothing to do with pop culture, it does have to do with the TV.

When I was growing up my grandmother was always telling us to "Baja la voz" because we were kids and liked the TV hovering around 100 decibels. Then I got married and had kids who speak even less Spanish than I do (which, by mathematical reasoning is less than zero) so I had to tell them to put the TV down in a language they could understand, "Lower the voice."

Well, ha ha ha family! Go ahead and all speak in bass tones while the TV blares on loudly. See if I care!

***

80's romance girl wants to know when all this bloggity crap is gonna end so she can get with the slappityfups. The innieouting. The boomabangity. The hockichachi. The sex! 80's romance girl has been waiting 30 years!

Monday, May 18, 2015

Every now and then I get this antsy, go-do-it feeling like I need to pound copper or age wood or twist wire. Right now I'm in the middle of a mini-project that is taking some time and I'm nothing if not impatient. So, for some instant gratification, I want to make a box.

When I say "make a box", I'm straight up lying. I don't make anything and the thing I'm not making isn't square like a box. What I'm really doing is decorating a cylinder. Here is where I start:

As you can see, it isn't square and I haven't made it. But I will do things to it. Cruel, tortuous things.

The plan was to describe each horrible step and show a picture of it, like horror porn only crafty. Here is step one: Drown the not-box in a jar of tea.

Not-box stays in the tea long enough for me to run upstairs and get my Amazon Fire because watching wood soak is really boring.

As if drowning the wood in tea isn't tortuous enough, I next drown it in a nasty solution of vinegar and steel wool. Why? Because stinky, that's why!

What does all this soaking in noxious fluids do? Nothing! I did it for fun and because I like to see wood suffer.. Also, now the not-box looks like this:

But all for naught because, after many other steps that I neglected to photograph but believe me, each was more horrifying than the one before-- you can't see the wood at all.

People of a crafty DIY bent will know that the vinegar and steel wool solution is to age wood. The solution does some sort of alchemy with the tannin in the wood and, voila! funky looking old wood. However pine, which the not-box is made of, doesn't have much tannin in it, hence the tea bath. Tea has tannin in it.

And there you have it. A detailed, step-by-step tutorial on how to make a box. Except for the part about how to make and decorate it, it's all there.

The people on 170th Street and The Grand
Concourse back in the early ‘80s who always talked about how they were stone
cold sover. It’s sober, you bunch of inner city idiots! And they were never
sober, stone cold or otherwise.

The mockingbird who sits on the light pole right outside my
bedroom window. You can’t do a seagull. Stop trying. Your car backing up and Nextel
ringtone sound far better than that awful, half-assed seagull shriek. How is it
you can mimic an inanimate object perfectly but can’t copy an animal in your
own Genus. Stop it. In fact, shut the hell up all together before I throw a cat
at you

.

Hey you Pennsylvanians, you are a proud member of the
Northeast no matter how rural your farm is. Stop saying “needs warshed”. No wonder
they call where you live Pennsyltucky.

It’s a stoop. You don’t know what a stoop is? No, don’t bend
down, that’s a totally different kinda stoop. You can’t sit on that stoop and
eat a hard roll with butter with a regular coffee. I said, ‘a roll with butter’
not ‘a dinner roll’. I want to sit here on this stoop, eat this roll with
butter, drink my regular coffee with milk and sugar in it and watch the kids play
skully. Waddayamean kids don’t play skelzies
no more?

Thursday, May 14, 2015

See, what had happened was a virus, sometimes called shingles even though you don't catch it from your roof, invaded the hairy hallway in my ear (and other important nerves that your body so conveniently bundles into a tiny space behind your ear) making me a stumbling non-alcoholic drunk. I am not making any of this up. I like to visualize my vestibular system like this here picture:

only in a hallway inside my ear.

In order to relearn how to stand up straight, I go to therapy 3 times a week. This therapy consists of staring at a capital 'B'. As it was explained to me, Capital B is the most soothing of all the letters in the alphabet. Take that Silent E.

Not only do I stare at Capital B, I also nod my head yes to it and shake my head no at it. Repeatedly. Because sometimes Capital B is good and deserves encouragement and sometimes Capital B is very, very naughty.

There are other things I do in therapy. I walk up and down a 5 step flight of stairs. It is my and my therapist's goal to one day have me walk down those stairs like a grown person-one step per foot- and not have to grip the handrail for dear life. Shoot for the stars, I say! I also jog while sitting down, march on foam and stand on the rings of Saturn as I try not to fall. But mostly, I stare at Capital B.

So now you know what vestibular therapy is. Seriously. I'm not making any of this up.

Wednesday, May 13, 2015

My front lawn is far to close to the street to eat from, but I did prep two veggie beds this last weekend. If you don't believe me, I have the pictures to prove it:

There was a lot of wild onion in the small bed in the background. So we ate it for dinner. You too can eat your weeds, but before you do, make sure it is wild onions and wild garlic you are dealing with and not Death Camas. Because Death Camas can, as you probably guessed by the name, kill you. They grow in the western part of North America. There is one sure way to tell the difference between Death and onions: the smell.

Wild onions and garlic smell like (again, it's all in the name) onions. They smell very strongly. You can smell them way before you pick them. In fact, just walking buy a bunch can be an olfactory attack so severe, you'll need to wash your face with a skunk to get over it. I'm exaggerating. I have to say I'm exaggerating so I don't get sued by idiots with skunk breath. Again, I exaggerate.

Anyways, these are them that I picked all cleaned up and ready for the getting ready.

Drizzle with olive oil, sprinkle with salt and pepper, add a few slices of ginger and slap that sunova right on the grill. In order to make them extra tasty, my husband grilled pork chops too. Because pork chops make everything tastier. Here is the lawn all cooked and finally ready to get eaen:

I do not advise eating the ginger. Unless you're into that. Then go ahead and eat a big ole slab of ginger, see if I care.

Tuesday, May 12, 2015

As of May 8th, 2015, I have been separated from payroll. I now have to fill the hours with something more than Vestibular Therapy. Sunday was easy. It was Mother's Day and I forced my family to take me plant shopping. Usually I make them buy me all kinds of vegetables and annuals. Many more than can fit on our small piece of dirt. This year, not so much. Don't have the stamina.

I do, however, have an experiment going. Will mint make a good ground cover for the front lawn?

This is my dead front lawn. There are two newly planted peppermint and spearmint plants hidden among the dry death. It was only after they were planted that I read that mint does not do well in direct sunlight. This lawn is totally East facing and gets a shi. . .boatload of sunlight from sun up until the sun dips behind the house many hours after 12 noon. Good thing I underestimated how many plants I would need to fill in this spot.

My plan going forward: Plant creeping thyme. Much better suited for direct sunlight. There will be a battle for supremacy on the front lawn. Who will win? Weeds, dead grass, tulip bulbs wild onion or dandelions? There can only be one! Well, there can be more than one. I'm rooting for Team Mint.

In other news, my 1980s romance continues to stupify me with how very 80's it is. Heroine uses a phone book. A DAMN PHONE BOOK! Verizon insists on leaving these on my doorstep even now. Do you know what they are good for? Lighting my charcoal barbecue chimney, that's what.